Teacher Tips ~ Morning

There are a LOT of things to get done in the morning. Students need to pack their belongings, clean up the cabings, eat breakfast and do hostel chores. If then need lunches and you have not already made them the evening before, you will need to squeeze this chore in as well. To make this time run smoothly, it is essential that you have enough parent volunteers. Make sure your parents fully understand the time commitment involved with this field trip. You might also enlist additional parent volunteers to come out to Hidden Villa just for the morning (7:00-9:00 AM) to help with breakfast and clean-up. You need a minimum of 5 parents during this time, though things would run much more smoothly if you had 6-8.

7:00 = Getting Up

• Get up before 7am to give yourself time to get dressed, wake-up and prepare for the day.
• During the orientation, the hostel manager will make it very clear that students are NOT to get out of their beds until 7:00 AM. Review this with the parent volunteers the evening before.
• At 7:00 AM, walk between the cabins to wake up your class and remind them of the morning instructions. Explain that they will have absolutely no more than half an hour to do the following:
  • Get dressed.
  • Take their sheets off the beds and fold the hostel blankets.
  • Pack all of their belongings.
  • Sweep and tidy-up the cabin.
  • Brush their hair, wash their faces and brush their teeth.
  • Bring all their belongings down to the hostel porch.

7:30 = Breakfast

• Ideally you will have a couple of parents coming out to Hidden Villa in the morning specifically to help you with breakfast and clean-up. Have these parent volunteers start organizing breakfast at 7:00 AM while the other parents are helping students in the cabins.
• You will want a breakfast that demonstrates healthy eating, but that takes little preparation or clean-up. Cold (unsweetened) cereal with milk, whole-wheat bagels with cream cheese, and toast with jam are all good options. Whole fruit or a fruit salad with yogurt are also favorites. If you have a fruit salad, make sure it is prepared ahead of time. In the morning you are really going to need most of your parents helping in the cabins.

8:00am = Clean-Up and Morning Activity

• As guests at a hostel, there are several clean-up chores that your class will be responsible for in the morning. Rather than sending your entire class off to do chores, it can be much faster to send pairs of students with each parent volunteer. The hostel manager will give you a stack of chore cards that clearly explain what chores need to get done. There are copies in Spanish if needed.
• In this case, your job as the teacher is to occupy the rest of the class while the parents supervise the cleaning. This will all go much more smoothly if you have a sufficient number of parent volunteers.
• Because the parents and kid cleaners will need to clean the entire hostel, it would be best to take the rest of your class outside for a morning activity. If it is warm-ish, this could include writing or reading on the picnic tables outside the hostel. Otherwise, you might consider leading your class on a calm meander through the farm. If you are studying poetry, you could call this a "poetry scavenger hunt" and encourage your students to look for images they could use in a poem (and then write them in their notebooks). Things look different in the morning and students are often very interested in their observations. However, I advise that you don't wander too far in case you are needed back at the hostel - the garden is right in front of the hostel and provides lots of interesting moring observations.

9:15 -9:30 = Checking Out

• You will need to check in with the hostel manager before you leave. She will quickly survey the hostel to make sure that all the chores were done thoroughly. Make sure to remind the students that once the hostel has been cleaned that they are NOT allowed back in. This includes the bathrooms, so if students need to use the bathroom, the have to use the one by the pool.
• If you will be participating in the day program, you may leave your class's overnight bags in the enclosed hostel porch for the day. Make sure that your students have everything they need for the day's activities in their day packs.